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My MacBook Pro (2008) will not boot, so I want to copy some files before reinstalling Lion.

How do I do this from the Recovery disc?

Cajunluke
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Paul
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3 Answers3

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Boot up in Recovery Mode (Command + R) add attach an external drive via USB. Then open the Terminal to copy files using the command line. All disks are available under /Volumes.

Andrejs
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You might try using Target Disk Mode - hold down T at startup and then connect the MacBook Pro to another Mac (or a PC that can read Mac drives) via FireWire or Thunderbolt.

Or try holding down the Shift key to boot into Safe Boot mode.

If neither of those work, try booting from your MacBook Pro's system restore DVD, use Disk Utility and try repairing the disk, or try a 3rd party utility such as the venerable DiskWarrior.

Cajunluke
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da4
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  • I don't have a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable, otherwise that'd be the perfect answer. Safe boot mode didn't work unfortunately. I'm going to try Linux Mint first, and if that doesn't work, I'll try DiskWarrior. Thanks. – Paul Jul 14 '12 at 20:38
  • I've had no luck with bootable Linux so have ordered a Firewire cable from Amazon. – Paul Jul 15 '12 at 10:39
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I recommend using a Linux Live disk, specifically...

Linux Mint

... as is comes with nautilus gksu preinstalled. (This allows you to easily open folders as admin.)

You simply boot from the Linux Live disk, and use it to access your files on the Macintosh HD as administrator which allows you to copy them to an attached external hard drive.

Here's a short video tutorial on youtube. Note, that this tutorial uses an older version of Linux Mint.

Community
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gentmatt
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  • I couldn't get the MBP to recognise the disc. I only had some DVDs kicking around so will try a CDR in the hope that works. I also tried a bootable Ubuntu USB but that wasn't recognised either. – Paul Jul 15 '12 at 09:44
  • @Paul Bootable Linux USB on Macs are almost always a trouble to get to work. So, try CDs/DVDs first. When you see two boot options (Windows and Efi), I recommend to choose Windows, as Linux EFI boot still has many driver problems. – gentmatt Jul 15 '12 at 09:47
  • That's the thing - I'm not even seeing the Linux option to be able to boot into it. I only see the Mac HD, and the Recovery HD. Any ideas? – Paul Jul 15 '12 at 10:06
  • @Paul Try a PRAM reset. If you still don't see the Linux disk then, somethings really wrong. You should add that to your question. – gentmatt Jul 15 '12 at 10:08
  • BTW: You press the Alt key upon boot, right? Just making sure.... – gentmatt Jul 15 '12 at 10:10
  • Yep, the alt key. Just tried the PRAM reset and still no Linux disk on the boot screen... – Paul Jul 15 '12 at 10:34
  • So, I guess this is a hardware failure? You probably need to get the HDD and put it into an enclosure and try to recover the data. If the Mac does not see the Linux CD, it also should not see the OSX install disk/usb, I think. – gentmatt Jul 15 '12 at 10:46
  • youtube link has succumbed to linkrot, and wayback machine has no record: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://yt.cl.nr/yuTdiPSf2E0 if you needed yet another reason to not shorten urls. any chance you remember the title @gentmatt? – albert Feb 18 '18 at 03:27